Chapter 12 – Lion and Lamb.

We sat in the clearing, surrounded by flowers, and I felt as though I had been dropped into a bard's poetry or a minstrel's song. Was this really me, sitting beside the most extraordinary creature in existence?

Lord Edward lay back on his elbows and looked at me curiously. "What are you thinking?"

"That I can't believe I am sitting here with you," I said shyly.

"You very nearly weren't, you know." Lord Edward's voice was light, but there was a darkness in his eyes that made my stomach tighten.

"What do you mean?"

"I've told you that I am dangerous Bella, but I don't think you realise how much," Lord Edward said bleakly. "Perhaps if I tell you how close I came to killing you, it will make you take me seriously."

My breath was shallow. "Tell me."

"The first day I saw you. I had heard of your arrival through the minds of others; your arrival was of great interest to them. I myself thought much less of it, you know how we tend to keep aloof. I thought you would be no more to me than the other girls." He paused and smiled at me, making his cutting words easier to hear. "Then came the dinner when I first saw you. I was doing what I always do – half listening to people's minds and half pretending to eat. Jocelyn was talking to you, and so I opened my mind a little to find you. But I couldn't do it. I was stunned…when had I ever not been able to find a mind? When I didn't hear you I deliberately sought you out but there was nothing…pure silence. It was astonishing."

"It must have been very strange."

"You have no idea. I watched you, and when your father came over to introduce you to Carlisle and Esme I came over too, to see if I could solve the mystery. And then I caught your scent." Lord Edward hesitated. "Bella, never in one hundred years have I smelled anything I wanted more."

I clasped my hands together and stared at him, fascinated. "But you didn't do anything."

"I wanted to," Lord Edward said flatly. "In seconds I had thought through every scenario that would have enabled me to feed on you right then and there. I could have killed every single man, woman and child in that room if it would have given me a chance to taste your blood. The only thing that stopped me was the idea of taking you away so that I could savour it, and that gave me just enough pause to take a hold of myself. Then I thought of my family, and what my lack of control would mean to them and that gave me the strength to flee."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry it was like that for you."

"No," Lord Edward barely let me finish. "It was not your fault. It was all me, all my dark instincts screaming for the satiation that would have been so easy for me to take. You know we are the perfect predator? Everything about us draws people to us: our beauty, our scent, the sounds of our voices and the look in our eyes." Lord Edward sounded bitter.

"But that's not what it is with me," I said certainly. "You dazzle me, I won't deny that, but it's more than that."

"You seem to be an exception to everything," Lord Edward murmured. "And yet you don't realise how rare that is."

"What happened after you left the great hall?" I asked, returning to his earlier tale.

"I made it out of the hall, and being away from your scent made it marginally easier. I went to my family's rooms and Alice came in a second later. She had seen me leaving, but she didn't know why. The others came in and in seconds I had explained. It was an untenable situation, and I decided I had to go away immediately. I couldn't risk staying, and so I left and went to our cousins in the north." He smiled. "Tatiana, Katya and Irinushka. Yes, the friends that the hounds are named for! It was helpful to be away, but I missed my family. I knew I had upset Esme in particular and I felt terrible about that. Also, away from your scent in such pure air it seemed impossible that you were so irresistible. I was arrogant enough to believe that no one could possibly have come so close to bringing me undone after so many years of effort. I decided to return, but take more precautions. Hunt and feed more often, and avoid you as much as possible, especially in any smaller space. I thought that maybe Charles could be encouraged to make a match for you, given help with a dowry perhaps, and then you could be wed away from the castle." Edward gave a half laugh. "Foolish, foolish thoughts."

"You don't want to kill me now though," I said.

"I will not kill you," Lord Edward said broodingly. "I swear I will not hurt you! But your blood sings to me Bella, and I cannot deny that I want it."

My hands were shaking and I clasped them more firmly in my lap. "Is it always like this? Is it always so difficult to resist?"

"It has never been like this for me before, so I asked my brothers about it," Lord Edward said. "I hoped they might have some knowledge to share, and they did. For Jasper, most humans smell basically the same. He has been abstaining from humans for the shortest time and still finds it difficult to resist. Emmett has been resisting longer and, like me, can recognise nuances in the blood scent. But twice he has come across humans whose scent was exceptional to him. Once early on, and once more recently."

"And what happened," I whispered, already thinking that perhaps this was a question I didn't want an answer to.

"He fell," Lord Edward said flatly. "As I have said to you Bella, we are very good at what we do but the temptations are great and sometimes we fall."

"Oh. Oh." So there had been death. Lord Emmett's efforts at resistance had failed and people had died. My stomach lurched and I looked across the meadow, letting the serenity of it calm me. "But you're here," I said softly. "Alone with me, despite the danger."

"You say that so calmly, as though it doesn't even matter."

" It doesn't really matter. It's not that I want to die at all," I said slowly, clarifying. "But being here, with you…I want that more than anything else. And if I have to risk my life for that, I'll do it gladly."

Lord Edward was silent for a long time, looking broodingly off into the distance.

"I'm glad you didn't get me married off!" I said lightly, hoping to break the tension.

Lord Edward smiled a little sadly. "There's part of me that still wishes you had nothing to do with me, that you were enjoying a normal, safe human life."

"What's safe?" I challenged him. "You know as well as I do, or even better, that life can be precarious."

"There is safer than me, though."

"There is more with you," I countered.

Lord Edward sighed. "I came back, thinking that you could not possibly have been as irresistible as I remembered. I was presumptuous about it, thinking I could treat you just as I would any of the other ladies and the spell you held over me would dissipate."

"And did it?"

"No." Lord Edward gave me a reluctant smile. "If anything it got worse. I spoke with you and I was intrigued. Partly because I couldn't read your mind and that was a novelty for me, but also because your response to me captivated me. I was fascinated by the way your face changes, by what I could see and tell even without your mind. It was difficult, horribly difficult, to be so close to you and yet so far away, but I thought I could stand it. And then came the day with the runaway horse, and I put everything that my family has built at risk because I had to save you." He paused, and his voice changed a little, became more cautious as he went on. "My family were deeply concerned over what I had done. Some of them were furious, especially when I admitted your perseverance about discovering what was different about me. We fought about what was the right thing to do, both what was morally right and what might be necessary." He grimaced. "In the end I won, and it was decided that we would do nothing, but watch and wait."

He sounded so unhappy, that I daringly reached over and stroked his hand.

"I was busy over the next few days," Lord Edward said reflectively. "I was listening in on everyone's minds that you spoke to, trying to find out what you were saying about the accident. I thought there was no way you would be discreet, but you were. You let nothing slip about your suspicions. Looking at the future, Alice saw nothing dangerous, or at least nothing she would tell me. But with every day that went past, you began to play more on my mind. The perfume of your scent, from your skin and hair and clothes… it called to me and I could no longer stay away. I began to listen in to what people thought just to hear of you. Despite the danger to you, despite the possible horror for me…you had become as necessary to me as blood."

"I understand the danger to me," I said. "But the possible horror for you? I don't understand. You can't possibly be hurt by me."

"Oh Bella," Lord Edward said, and his voice held a note of deep grief. "Don't you see? If I slip up, you will go on to the next world. It will be a tragedy, but you will be in heaven and feel nothing but joy. But for me…if I slip up now I will have nothing but the horror of having been the one to end your beautiful life, and the everlasting grief of having lost you. Bella, I can't live without you now. The very idea of it is unendurable. You are the most important, the most necessary, thing in my life." His looked at me, and the vulnerability of his confession was so different to usual self-possession that it touched my heart.

"Thank you for being so honest," I whispered. "I guessed some of it, but I didn't know it all, or know what was true…but if you meant to horrify me you've done the opposite. After everything you've told me all I do is think even more how extraordinary you are." I stroked the back of his hand again. "I suppose it's obvious to you, even without being able to read my mind, how I feel. I'm here, and I know that it's dangerous, but the truth is I would rather die that be without you now."

"Oh Bella!" Lord Edward sat up and held my hands in between his. They were cold and smooth and impossibly strong, and the touch of them was perfect. "What have we done?"

I smiled tremulously. "There was never another choice really. Right from the start I think it was meant to be like this."

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb," Lord Edward murmured.

"What a stupid lamb," I sighed.

"What a sick, masochistic lion," Lord Edward returned.

And staring into Lord Edward's golden eyes I could imagine him as one of the exotic cats I had heard about, lithe and graceful and beautiful and deadly.

Lord Edward looked down to where my hands were caught between his, his eyes wide with wonder. "Do you know the last time I held hands with someone?"

I shook my head, gazing down at my hands, wrapped in his glittering ones. Lord Edward held me, his thumbs tracing my skin as he laced his fingers through mine.

"You're so warm," he murmured. "And I can feel the pulse beat in your wrist. So very, very human."

The two of us moved until we were sitting cross-legged, facing each other with our hands clasped in between us. I knew what an appalling lack of modesty this was but I arranged my skirts as decorously as I could and thought no more of it. Somehow, with Lord Edward there, nothing really mattered but being together.

"Is it difficult?" I wanted to know. "To touch me? Does that make it harder?"

Lord Edward considered. "I don't know about being more difficult to resist you. That seems an utterly impossible task! But touching you, even like this with only your hands, makes me painfully aware of how fragile you are." He held my hand on his, my palm up so he could trace the lines on it. "Did you know that the human hand has twenty seven bones?"

"I didn't know that."

"Twenty seven bones…twenty seven bones that I could crush accidentally if I were to forget myself and take hold of your hand roughly. It is not only my thirst that puts you at risk, but the very nature of what I am."

Lord Edward's voice was agonised, but I felt surprisingly peaceful, sitting in the golden sunshine and feeling Lord Edward's cool fingers tracing the lines on my palm. "You speak as though what this is, between us, is an impossible thing."

"It is an impossible thing! And yet I want it so very badly, so much more than I have ever wanted anything." Lord Edward's voice dropped, and his face was illuminated even more by the tender smile he gave me. "You hold my heart, Bella."

"Oh, my Lord!" Impulsively I moved towards him, but before my eyes could even focus he had disappeared, reappearing in the distance, at the edge of the clearing.

"I'm sorry!" I cried. "My Lord, I'm sorry!"

Lord Edward held up his hand. "Give me a minute, please Bella."

I bit my bottom lip and waited anxiously. After a moment of absolute stillness in the shadow of the trees, Lord Edward walked noiselessly across the meadow and smiled crookedly. "Forgive me, Bella."

"What did I do?" I asked hesitantly. "Was it too close? Do you need me to maintain more distance? Do you…"

"No, Bella, wait. It isn't your fault." Lord Edward sat down beside me and once again took my hands in his. "That was me…I was unprepared."

I went to pull my hands away. "Should I stay further away? I don't want to make it more difficult for you."

Lord Edward's fingers tightened. "No. I can control myself, I'm just not really accustomed to being so close to humans. Certainly not touching them." He suddenly looked at me closely. "I hope I am not doing anything to make you uncomfortable," he said. "I would not want to be making unwanted advances."

"No," I said, blushing. "This is…is fine."

Slowly, so slowly, Lord Edward squeezed his hands delicately around mine, and then lifted my hands. I could barely breathe as his eyes met mine and then he pressed his lips against my hands in a kiss.